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When I was in high school, I’d get up two hours early to make sure I had enough time to shower, dry, and style my hair to a T. I enjoyed it. Any leftover time was used to review my lessons for the day because, as a Filipino child, scholastics weren’t something I could drop the ball with.
I styled my hair the same way so often that it became routine. Like a cartoon character. Same school uniform, same hair. I changed up the shoes, but still. My morning was set, and clearly my hair was important to me.
Back in teenage land, I wore school uniforms my whole life. Styling my hair was one of the few things I could do to have some sort of individual identity.
Now, I prefer washing my hair after my hair at night. I’d rather sleep for 30 more minutes than curl my hair than wake up early to curl my hair.
After the pandemic, I started investing a lot more time and money into taking care of my hair. Part of that meant reducing the amount of heat I exposed it to, but my standards for what I consider “done” hair also changed.
I realized I didn’t need to be glam all the time. More importantly, I realized I wasn’t always doing it for myself. I was doing it so other people thought I looked put together. I am very Medium Maintenance, so obviously I care what I look like. But through my 20s and early 30s, I was doing a lot of that styling for other people.
Now I’m much more comfortable just sporting my straight hair.
The Hair Styling I Always Make Time For
I know this post is about styling, but taking care of my hair and using the right products makes it easier for my hair to look good without requiring much work on my end.
On a hair wash day, I let my hair air dry for a bit. Then I use a blow dry spray, which adds some shine and softness while protecting my hair from heat, and dry my hair as usual. I specifically want my ends to feel less dry. Most of the time, this is enough for me to get out the door.
Blow drying is worth the effort because even though my hair is naturally straight, finishing it with a round brush and heat from a blow dryer sets everything nicely. Other ways of styling my hair take longer than I’d like. At this point, I’m mostly looking to feel comfortable with my appearance. Just me, no one else.
I also make the effort to brush my hair every day. My hair is very straight, so I don’t have many issues. If I have a kink or something similar, especially when I’m getting close to a wash day, I usually put my hair up. I don’t love the idea of styling my hair when it isn’t totally clean. It feels weird. I’ve done it in a pinch, but I don’t prefer it.
As I’ve been writing for this blog, I’ve also been dabbling with different hot tools. If I’m going to style my hair, wash day is usually when it happens.
I’m willing to put effort into my hair to keep it healthy and protect my color. That makes everything easier if I decide I want to style it. But my straight hair is “done” enough for me. I don’t need to change the shape of it every day just for the sake of saying I styled my hair.
The Styling I Skip Without Guilt
For a long time, I had no problem not curling my hair anymore. I used to do it daily, but that was a different time in my life. I was more public facing, and I felt pressure to look a certain way. After the pandemic, I stopped because I realized I was doing a lot of it for perception rather than myself.
I’d rather spend that time doing other things that mean more to me.
Now that I have Blonde Asian, I am styling my hair more. There’s a reason for it. If I’m going to review hot tools for people with hair like mine, I need to actually use them. I don’t think a first impression is enough, which is also why I test things for an extended period of time.
If Blonde Asian didn’t exist, I’d probably use a hot tool once every two or three months, or whenever my hairdresser decides to curl my hair.
But I’m starting to rethink that too.
The more I use these tools for the blog, the more I realize I actually miss curling my hair. I think I’m starting to fall in love with it all over again. The difference is that now I want to do it for myself, not because I think I’m supposed to look a certain way.
For a hot tool to stay in my life, it needs to do what it claims, make styling my hair easier, and be relatively easy to store. If I just can’t get around to using something, I don’t beat myself up about it.
The same goes for washing my hair. I wash it about every two days because preserving my color has always been a priority. With the length of my hair, I also don’t want to spend all that time getting it the way I want every single day. K18 AirWash is a lifesaver for me. It’s easy to use and works better than other dry shampoos I’ve tried.
A full wash, dry, and style isn’t necessarily difficult. It’s just more time consuming than it used to be because of the length of my hair. What it really costs me is brain power. I’m thinking about timing, letting it air dry enough before taking a hair dryer to it, and whether I actually want to keep going once my hair is dry.
Sometimes the answer is no.
The Styling Advice I Ignore
I hear this one a lot: Don’t wash your hair the day you’re getting it styled for an event.
First of all, I don’t know you. Don’t tell me what to do.
Secondly, this person has never met me. How do they know what my hair is actually like the day after a wash? I know the argument is that hair is less slick and easier to style when it isn’t freshly washed. But there’s no reference point for the stranger who is styling my hair into an updo I don’t want for someone’s wedding.
I don’t like feeling unwashed before an event.
I actually followed the “dirty hair” advice once even though I knew my hair styled better clean. It was unseasonably warm in Michigan, and I had been doing something the day before that made my scalp sweat. I can’t remember what, but apparently that detail became important because the next day the hairstylist called me gross.
I was so shocked.
She did my hair and she didn’t die.
I didn’t go Blonde Asian on her because it was my best friend’s wedding. Since then, I’ve opted to do my own hair for weddings if professional styling isn’t already being paid for.
I don’t mind event hair, but wedding hair specifically can feel so copy-pasta to me. A lot of the updos look the same. I’ll do it if it’s asked of me, but I’d rather do something else.
I also don’t want to be a difficult client. But if Blonde Asian hasn’t clued you in, I’m very in tune with my hair. I struggle with someone who has never met me immediately telling me what I should do with it. There’s a difference between listening to a hair professional and assuming a stranger automatically knows my hair better than I do.
The Results I Actually Care About
I do think your hair can influence how people perceive you. Since losing my mother, I haven’t been paying as much attention to that, and I think that’s okay. People sometimes ask me if I’m okay, and I’m honest. Some days are good and others aren’t the best.
At this point, as long as I don’t look disheveled, I think I’m doing okay. I have no interest in putting more pressure on myself.
When I say disheveled, I mean I want my hair to look intentional. I don’t want it to be clumpy or tangled because it’s dry. If my hair is my thing, I need to show up.
Grief and loss have changed my relationship with getting ready. I know more than ever what matters to me versus what doesn’t. Time is precious, and I don’t want to spend mine doing something purely because I think other people expect it from me.
I still enjoy looking good when I choose to put in the effort. The difference is that I want to put myself together for me, not for the room.
If I knew my hair would consistently look the same every time I curled it, I’d be much more likely to spend the extra 20 minutes doing it. My hair is longer now, and my favorite curling iron broke, so I’m on the hunt for one I actually enjoy using.
But if those same 20 minutes could give me some much-needed sleep, I’m taking the sleep.
What Hair Effort Looks Like for Me
Styling my hair has taken a back seat in my life, but as I share my experiences here, I want to help other people cut through the bull.
I think working with the hair you have can be much more rewarding than constantly working against it. I feel great sporting my straight hair now that I’ve found a way to make it mine. It seems like people with straight hair always want to curl it, while people with curly hair always want to straighten it. I’m all for either if it truly makes you, and just you, happy. Otherwise, there’s something really nice about figuring out how to work with what you have.
That’s also why I don’t think Medium Maintenance is as simple as deciding something is worth doing because the payoff is good enough. The mechanics of getting there can still be stressful. Medium Maintenance is much more fluid for me.
If I have a light week, spending the extra time and effort on my hair might be worth it. If I’m working every day and I’m sleep deprived, the outcome doesn’t matter if getting there leaves me drained.
High school me would probably wonder what happened to make me stop styling my hair every day.
If I were allowed to talk to her, I’d tell her that life has a way of showing you what is and isn’t worth it.
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